Sal was an iceberg.
Whatever desire he had to have a family, a lover, kids, and so on died the day he was abandoned by his master, betrayed by his senior brother, and tortured by his fellow sect members. All that was left was the desire to get strong, conquer everything the eye could see, and live infinitely!
Of course, he had some other desires, such as destroying the two sects and one empire that had joined hands to orchestrate his fall from grace. He was going to take revenge and nothing was going to change that!
Ever since those torturous days, he had developed extreme trust issues. He never befriended or trusted another. For hundreds of years, no one had been as close to him as Ann.
He hadn't been hugged in a long while.
Thus, for a while, he was unable to decide how he should react to it.
'When a person is hugged, what do they do?'
Sal seemed to have remembered the answer to his question as he hugged Ann back and patted her back.
Feeling her brother hugging her back, Ann felt satisfied.
"Thank you, brother," she muttered while resting her head on his broad chest.
"Thanks for what?" he asked.
She looked up with a smile and said in a pleasant tone, "Thank you for not being mad at me."
The wide smile that blossomed on her face made her look as innocent as dandelions in a spring meadow, or like dewdrops glistening on the first light of dawn.
Sal was a bit stunned, looking at her smile.
'This type of innocence is rare to come across,' he thought.
A person's eyes are the windows to their soul, but their smile reflects their character and highlights what kind of person they are.
Ann's sweet smile showed her heart was free of filth.
The troubles she had faced so far in her life and the ugliness of the world had failed to change her, and she had managed to retain her innocence!
'Ann is kind, caring, beautiful, and innocent despite being in a place where being helpful and kind is punished, especially if you're poor and weak.
'If push comes to shove, she can also be bold and daring.
'Furthermore, her voice is pleasant to the ears, like the melody of birds.
'No wonder she attracted trouble as soon as she arrived in the refugee camp with her brother.'
'People like her are prone to trouble.'
If he was given a choice between staying with her or abandoning her, if there were no benefits involved, he would choose the latter. He couldn't do that for now as he had a resentment to solve.
Remembering what kind of trouble this little lass, who has yet to reach adulthood, had attracted, Sal couldn't wait to resolve it, his grey eyes gleaming with anticipation.
Once he killed Big Joe, he would resolve the resentment of the original owner.
The anomaly would disperse, but not before granting him the memories of the owner owner as well as his secrets.
He would gain a clearer understanding of this world and he might also benefit from knowing the secrets of the original owner. He was suspicious that the siblings weren't as simple as they seemed and the secrets of the original owner might be bigger than his widest guess.
'For my benefits, Big Joe has to go.'
'I will butcher him by tonight after raising my cultivation.'
Sal wasn't the type of guy to speak empty words.
Since he desired to kill Big Joe, it meant he would go out of his own way to grant him death.
Ann hugged her big brother for a while before slowly pulling away from him. She looked at him and saw that his lips were cracked and had begun to peel, showing he had gone without water for too long.
"Big Brother, your lips look like they could use some water. I will go get some for you."
"Don't bother yourself. I will get it myself," Sal said to Ann as he slid his feet into old, worn-out shoes that had seen better days and stood up from the bed.
"I have mostly recovered from my injuries thanks to you. You don't need to baby me any longer. You have already helped me enough."
After saying these words to Ann, Sal made his way to the corner of the shack where a large clay jug of water was kept.
'My Big Brother is not going to die because of me. I can be forgiven, right?'
Ann suddenly began to feel so much better.
All this while, she had been blaming herself for the beating he had endured, believing that if not for her, if she didn't exist, he would have never gotten into a scuffle with Big Joe and his gang in the first place. Seeing him move about and joke lightened the weight of the guilt pressing heavily on her heart.
Unaware of her thoughts, Sal reached out, grabbing the handle of the large clay jug.
It was half filled. There was a little over 200 ml of water in it.
Picking it up, he put its opening to his mouth and tilted it.
He drank directly from the jug, not bothering to use the cracked bowl used for drinking that was placed just beside the jug before he had picked it up.
Like Ann had observed earlier, he was indeed dehydrated. Even after drinking all the water inside the jug, his thirst didn't quench. He was still feeling quite thirsty.
He knew he needed to drink some more water.
After all, gone were the days when he was a grandmaster of spiritual combat who didn't need to eat or drink to survive.
He is now just a mere mortal. He needs to listen to his body and give it what it requires. He needs to eat when he is hungry and drink when he is thirsty.
Sal thought to himself before he suddenly felt an intense gaze on him.
Turning around, he saw Ann looking at him with wide eyes full of shock as if he had done something he shouldn't have. Her mouth was agape and her breath was stuck in her throat as if she had forgotten how to breathe.
'Why does she look so greatly shocked?' Sal wondered to himself. 'I only drank some water.'
"Brother, did you drink all the water inside the jug?" Ann asked after remembering to breathe.
Sal responded to her with a nod. "But I am still feeling quite thirsty. Is there any more water?"
"That was all we had, and we don't have the money to buy more," Ann said. "And it's not easy to get that money either. It cost an entire day's worth of hard work to get 500 ml of clean water."
'An entire day's work for a measly 500 liters of water? The worth of a mortal life might be cheaper in this world than I have initially expected,' Sal thought to himself before asking Ann another question, "Is drinkable water a rare commodity here?"
"Not just here, but in every part of the world," Ann replied.
"Why is that so?" Sal asked.